I Am What I Think I Am

Having been exposed to various kinds of psychological tests coupled with my constant conscious effort in the past to really know myself, I could say that I do know me pretty well. Pretty much so that, at this point I rarely experience feelings and behavioral responses that I could not explain. In the privacy of my own thoughts I can afford to see myself stripped of all my biases, rationalizations and other defense mechanisms that almost always appear to be harmless self-deceptions.
It is with these that the interpretations of my responses to that brief self-awareness exercise came as no surprise. The first three questions regarding favorite animals are basics—its what the animals signify to the person that chooses it rather than the commonly perceived characteristics of an animal that really tells about the individual. The last question—the one about the coffee—is what those in behavioral studies call a party ice-breaker; the sort of question that a person poses to friends just for laughs.
The second set of questions is different, however.
It had me thinking for days. I am particularly interested in the flower and the creek thing. Thing first because it highlighted change in my psyche and the second because I personally find its interpretation significantly debatable,
Starting off from a more impersonal subject, the creek, as what can be gleaned from the interpretations, somehow symbolizes friends or people surrounding the individual being tested. Those who imagined to touch the pristine waters are considered to have the tendency to be easily influenced by outside forces—suggesting a weakness in a person’s character. In all my readings and in some occasion that I found a creeks or any bodies of water, for that matter, in personality tests, it is always made to represent life. Even in prose and poetic metaphors, it is always used to convey the idea of life. Its waves represents life’s ups and downs and the way its water flows, whether peaceful, rapid, or raging, represents the condition and quality of one’s life. Taking this universally accepted abstraction of life as the basis in interpreting behavior and human tendencies, then the interpretation to the scene given would be as follows:
Those people who imagined themselves just admiring the pristine whiteness of the water ar the people who contend themselves to stand in the sidelines and have life pass them by. They are those people who are afraid to take risks, the one’s who avoid experiencing great pains at all cost and in so doing never know the depths of happiness. They enjoy life as long as they have minimal participation. They are for the most part OBSERVERS.
Those people who imagined themselves readily jumped into the water and swim around are in contrast RISK TAKERS. They are those people who are not afraid of the unknown. They are those who experiences great successes and tremendous failures. They take life as a never-ending challenge and oftentimes emerged victorious.
Those people who imagined themselves wade in at the shallow end of the waters are those that are either guided by PRUDENCE and CAUTION or hindered by it. They are those people who experience life in moderation as a general tendency

And for the most important part of the activity that hits me like a bullet—the interpretation of one’s behavioral response to the imaginary flower. During the activity, I had clearly visualized myself gently touching that mirror of nature’s beauty and splendor. Except maybe those who have allergic rhinitis, who can resist touching a beautiful, flower? To have it interpreted as a tendency to be materialistic had somehow brought conflicting emotions. Hearing the interpretations with its moralistic innuendoes, my initial reaction was from my highly hypocritical self screaming guilt. For a brief moment that morally rigid personal was asking me “What happen to the person who used to be grounded on the values of self-sacrifice; to the person who preferred the simple life of a dignified pauper.” Fortunately, the voice of reason finds it appropriate to assert herself asked, “Why, what’s wrong with wanting to live in material comfort?” As Og Mandino said in one of his books, “Poverty may be a privilege and even a way of life for the monk in the desert, for he has only himself to sustain and none but his God to please.”
There I realized that if the interpretation is correct and I’d like to think that it is, then I really did changed. Gone is the belief that the poorer you are, the closer you’ll be with God. The present me do aspire wealth and material comfort, but it does not mean that the self-sacrificing and dignified person is gone. She is still very much a part of me.
Only she has become more.
Now, she knows that life has so much to offer. She just needs to learn how to take it.
To be brave and courageous enough to partake in the abundance of life.
To have the strength and wisdom to shoulder the responsibilities of having much from life.
“Those who are much is given, more is also required.”
She knows that.
Psychological tests--standardized or otherwise--are designed in order for us or others if they wanted to, to help us reveal something about ourselves that most probably we normally ignore. The interpretations are believably accurate. However, at the end of the day, when you face yourself in the mirror it is still YOU who will define who and what you are. After all, when everything is said and done... WE are only WHAT we THINK we ARE.